Connected Or Not

Connected or Not

Matthew 12:33-37, NLT

A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. 34You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. 35A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. 36And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. 37The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.

Setting the Scene

Trees are identified by leaf structure and organization, bark, shape, fruit, and even DNA. Some trees like pecans, hickories, and walnuts produce seeds without fruit—nuts. So what was Jesus’ first point? He wasn’t talking about identifying a type of tree; he was talking about the qualities within a certain type of tree. He wasn’t comparing apple trees and orange trees; he was pointing to the difference between a good apple tree and a bad apple tree, a desirable orange tree and an undesirable orange tree. In that case, the proof is in the fruit.

The kind of fruit Jesus had in mind was words. He was directing his comments to the Pharisees who had mocked the healing of the demon-possessed man by accusing Jesus of operating under the influence of Satan (Matthew 12:24). By this point Jesus had demonstrated that the opposite was actually true—his accusers had revealed that they were producing the fruit of Satan.

In the passage we considered yesterday, we focused briefly on what happens when we resist the work of the Holy Spirit. But the wider teaching of Scripture gives us good clues about the positive side of that process—what happens when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit and let God bring forth fruit in our lives. Paul put it very well in Galatians 5:22-23: “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” (NLT).

Jesus’ words of confrontation in today’s Scripture portion may seem harsh to us, but his awareness of the Pharisees’ deep-seated unbelief required a kind of shocking language. The Holy Spirit used his words to crack their internal hardness or they simply rejected what he had said. Either way, they could never say they weren’t sternly warned.

Getting Personal

What kind of fruit have you been producing lately?

What is contained in the treasury of your heart?

Fruit quantity is not the same as quality. What a disappointment to bite into a beautiful fruit that is mealy or rotten inside. We must go beyond asking for fruit to ask God to grow good fruit.

Talking to God

Thank God for being the master gardener, in charge of growing good fruit in your life. Thank him for the Spirit’s power and presence to make those fruits appear.